Recorder

ABSTRACT

A recorder comprising a pipe-tube with a blowhole having a lip edge being concavely curved in a direction normal to the longitudinal axis of the pipe-tube, and a mouthpiece with a windway narrowing towards said blowhole and preferably having a plane bottom wall and a cylindrically shaped top wall.

United States Patent Johannes Muller Hamburg l3, Schlankreye 37, Germany824,385

May 8, 1969 June 22, 197! May 8, 1968 Germany Inventor Appl. No. FiledPatented Priority RECORDER 8 Claim, 7 Drawing Figs.

US. Cl. 84/384]! lnt. CL... 601d 7/02 Field of Search 84/380, 381, 383,384, 330

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,944,459 7/1960 Simmonds84/380 3,198,054 8/1965 Ehrlich 84/380 3,326,073 6/1967 Tremaine 84/380Primary Examiner-Richard B. Wilkinson Assistant Examiner-Lawrence R.Franklin AttorneyMichael S. Striker PATENTYED JUN22 19n- SHEET 2 BF 2RECORDER BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to animproved recorder, which can be played for long periods without gettinghoarse" and facilitates clean playing, especially clean semitones.

The known recorders comprise a flute tube having a plurality of lateralfingerholes, and a pipe-tube communicating with said flute tube andhaving a longitudinal blind bore, a lateral, square-shaped blowholecommunicating with said blind bore and having a straight lip edge, and amouthpiece having a windway opening into said blowhole opposite said lipedge. The windway of the known recorders usually has a square crosssection with parallel straight or curved bottom and top walls and withsidewalls normal. to both the bottom and top walls.

These known recorders suffer from the disadvantage, that the instrumentafter being played for a relatively short time, e.g. one hour, getshoarse, due to the condensed moisture in the windway. When a recorderbecomes hoarse," it is necessary to clean the windway, which obviouslycannot be done during playing. A short sharp blow through the windwaywill help to remove some of the moisture, however this will only helpfor a very short time. The habit of professional recorder players tokeep the instrument warm (near the body during rest periods) is noeffective measure either to prevent the instrument from getting hoarse."For this reason professional players, playing more extendedcompositions, need several recorders of the same type, each of which isreplaced by a new one after getting hoarse." Recorders made fromplastic, metal or. similar nonabsorbing materials get hoarse" evensooner than wooden instruments.

In order to overcome these difliculties it has already been proposed toprovide the windway with a nondeforming, moisture-absorbing material.Although this reduces the tendency of the instrument to get hoarse," itrequires a complicated shape of the windway and the insertion ofadditional finely porous plates of ceramic material, which make itdifficult to clean the mouthpiece and the material can move out of placeduring playing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of 'my invention is to provide anovel and improved recorder having a greatly reduced tendency to gethoarse" and which facilitates a clean playing, especially of thesemitones.

Another object of the invention is to provide a recorder which givessuperior tone quality and can be more strongly blown without affectingthe tone quality.

A further object of the invention is to provide a recorder which can beeasily manufactured in high quality and more easily be played bybeginners as well as experts.

One feature of my invention results in the provision of a recordercomprising a flute tube having a plurality of lateral fingerholes and apipe-tube communicating with said flute tube and having a longitudinalblind bore, a lateral blowhole communicating with said blind bore andhaving a lip edge being concavely curved in a direction normal to thelongitudinal axis of the pipetube, a mouthpiece having a windwaynarrowing towards said blowhole to an outlet opposite said lip edge.

According to a preferred embodiment the recorder of the inventioncomprises a pipe-tube having a windway with a slightly ascending, planebottom wall and a cylindrically shaped top wall intersecting with saidbottom wall at straight lines directed to the side ends of the lip edge.

The novel features which are considered as characteristic of theinvention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. Theimproved recorder itself, however, both as to its construction and itsadditional features and advantages, will be best understood upon perusalof the following detailed description of certain specific embodimentswith reference to the accompanying drawing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a longitudinal verticalsection through a preferred form of the recorder of the invention withthe main part of the flute tube broken away;

FIG. 2 is a longitudinal vertical section through the mouthpiece collarof the recorder shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a vertical elevational view of the pipe-tube of the recordershown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a vertical elevational view of the mouthpiece collar shown inFIG. 2; 7

FIG. 5 is a cross section through the pipe-tube shown in FIG. 1, thesection being taken in the direction of the arrows as seen from the lineV-V of FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a longitudinal vertical view, partly shown in section, of therecorder of the invention with the main part of the pipe-tube brokenaway; and

FIG. 7 is a vertical elevational view of the flute tube of the recordershown in FIG. 7.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring first to FIGS. 1 to 5there is shown a recorder comprising a flute tube 2 and a pipe-tube 1connected by a common sleeve 3 removably fitted overthe tube ends. Dueto said sleeve 3 it is possible to adjust the pitch of the recorder tosome extent by varying the distance of the ends of the pipetube 1 andthe flute tube 2 in the sleeve 3.

The pipe-tube I has an axial blind bore 4, which inwardly conicallyreduces and communicates with a lateral blowhole 6 forming a lip edge 7.In a direction normal or vertical to the longitudinal axis of thepipe-tube 1 the blowhole 6 has a circular shape and obliquely widensinwardly from the lip edge 7. The pipe-tube 1 has a generallycylindrical outer shape with an oblique bottom facet 5 at the mouthpieceend and a slightly ascending upper facet l 1 forming the bottom wall ofthe windway 9. Over the mouthpiece end of the pipe-tube 1 is fitted amouthpiece collar 8 with a cylindrical inner wall 10 forming the upperwall of the windway 9, and a cutout 13, the sidewalls of which surroundthe blowhole 6. The inner wall 10 of the mouthpiece collar 8 has asemicircular cross section so that the collar 8 is snugly fitted on tothe mouthpiece end of the pipe-tube 1, but can be easily removedtherefrom, in order to clean the windway 9 which has no sidewalls.

Referring now to FIGS. 6 and 7 there is shown a preferred form of theflute tube 2 having a plurality of fingerholes each provided with anoutwardly projecting fingerhole ring 14 which greatly facilitates aclean playing, especially of the semitones. The two lower fingerholesare subdivided by bridge-shaped parts. The flute tube 2 has acylindrical longitudinal through-bore.

The recorder according to the invention can be easily manufactured fromwood, metal, ivory, plastic or other suitable material. It is preferredto use acrylic plastic as material for at least the pipe-tube 1 and themouthpiece collar 8. It is however likewise possible to produce allother parts of the recorder also from acrylic glass or a similartransparent plastic. The use of such transparent material enables theplayer to directly view'the condensation of moisture in the windway.

The recorder of the invention can be played for extended times withoutgetting hoarse." This apparently is due to the specific shape of the lipedge and the windway, although the improvement obtained is quiteindependent of whether this explanation is correct or not.

Without further analysis, the foregoing so fully reveals the gist of thepresent invention that others can, by applying current knowledge,readily adapt it for various applications without omitting featureswhich fairly constitute essential characteristics of the generic andspecific aspects of my contribution to the art.

What I claim as new and desire to be protected by Letters Patent is setforth in the appended claims.

1. A recorder, comprising a flute tube having a passage and. a pluralityof lateral fingerholes communicating with said passage; a pipe-tubehaving a cylindrical outer surface and provided with a mouthpiece endand an outlet end; a longitudinal blind bore provided in said pipe-tubeand communicating at said outlet end with said passage; a blowhole of atleast substantially circular cross section provided in a normally upperwall portion of said pipe-tube and communicating with said blind bore;awindway extending from said mouthpiece end to and having an outletopening at said blowhole; a lip edge located opposite and inregistration with said outlet opening and being defined by theintersection of said blowhole with said cylindrical outer surface ofsaid pipe-tube, said lip edge being concavely curved towards saidmouthpiece end in axial direction of said bore; and concavely curvedinwardly towards said bore in direction transverse to the longitudinalaxis of the same;

2. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein said blowhole obliquelydiverges inwardly from said lip edge, and said windway narrows towardssaid outlet opening.

3. A recorder as defined in claim I, wherein said blind bore has adiameter which converges in direction towards said flute tube. 4

4. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein said windway has a slightlyascending plane bottom wall and a cylindrically shaped top wallintersecting with said bottom wall in straight lines directed to theside ends of said lip edge.

5. A recorder as defined in claim 4, further comprising an obliquebottom facet at the mouthpiece end and" a slightly ascending upper facetforming the bottom wall of said windway, and a separate mouthpiececollar fitted on the mouthpiece end of said pipe-tube, said collarhaving an at least semicylindrical inner wall "and a cutout withsidewalls surrounding said blowhole.

6. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein said flute. tube haslateral fingerholes surrounded by outwardly projecting fingerhole rings.

7. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein said flute tube and saidpipe-tube are connected by a common sleeve removably fitted over thetube ends.

8. A recorder as defined in claim I, wherein at least said pipe-tube ismade from transparent plastic material.

1. A recorder, comprising a flute tube having a passage and a pluralityof lateral fingerholes communicating with said passage; a pipe-tubehaving a cylindrical outer surface and provided with a mouthpiece endand an outlet end; a longitudinal blind bore provided in said pipe-tubeand communicating at said outlet end with said passage; a blowhole of atleast substantially circular cross section provided in a normally upperwall portion of said pipe-tube and communicating with said blind bore; awindway extending from said mouthpiece end to and having an outletopening at said blowhole; a lip edge located opposite and inregistration with said outlet opening and being defined by theintersection of said blowhole with said cylindrical outer surface ofsaid pipe-tube, said lip edge being concavely curved towards saidmouthpiece end in axial direction of said bore; and concavely curvedinwardly towards said bore in direction transverse to the longitudinalaxis of the same.
 2. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein saidblowhole obliquely diverges inwardly from said lip edge, and saidwindway narrows towards said outlet opening.
 3. A recorder as defined inclaim 1, wherein said blind bore has a diameter which converges indirection towards said flute tube.
 4. A recorder as defined in claim 1,wherein said windway has a slightly ascending plane bottom wall and acylindrically shaped top wall intersecting with said bottom wall instraight lines directed to the side ends of said lip edge.
 5. A recorderas defined in claim 4, further comprising an oblique bottom facet at themouthpiece end and a slightly ascending upper facet forming the bottomwall of said windway, and a separate mouthpiece collar fitted on themouthpiece end of said pipe-tube, said collar having an at leastsemicylindrical inner wall and a cutout with sidewalls surrounding saidblowhole.
 6. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein said flute tubehas lateral fingerholes surrounded by outwardly projecting fingerholerings.
 7. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein said flute tube andsaid pipe-tube are connected by a common sleeve removably fitted overthe tube ends.
 8. A recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein at leastsaid pipe-tube is made from transparent plastic material.